Historical Campaign Coop Battle of Iwo Jima Phase Two

Mission was a triumphant success and an excellent end to the campaign.

The 4th Marine Division swiftly captured the beachside quarry making use of their Stuart light tanks to destroy tanks and heavy weapons, before regrouping to push inland toward the Motoyama Central airfield.

A circuitous route had been selected, avoiding the perilous sheer cliff faces on the western approach to the airfield, and opting to use the only hill cover available in the form of a few short outcroppings close to the edge of the airfield. The reorganised division formed first a line to push forth, light tanks barraging the Japanese’s fortified positions from a distance, before several infantry squads and tanks broke off to secure trench approaches and hilltops from which to supress the enemy.

Although heavy losses were suffered to a spirited defence fighting trench and bunker to bunker, the division was able to secure the moonlit airfield before long, and what remained pushed on to the island garrison’s HQ, far to the north edge of the island, hastened in their movements by harassing attacks from Japanese planes.

Although flagging, what remained of the force made its way through difficult, rocky paths spotted with mines, and conducted a spirited, if less well organised final assault on General Kuribayashi’s base. The Marines used their remaining machine gunners and smoke grenades to push meter by meter into the base, at times under withering enemy fire from yet more machineguns in bunkers and trenches. With many of the Marine division’s leadership and radio operators lost at the airfield, fighting fell to intense pockets of soldiers operating individually to capture smaller sections of the sprawling base and destroy any resistance., with the HQ, and the island itself, falling to the Marine Divisions before sunup, to a chorus of adulation from what was left of the battered US Divisions.

An appropriately stirring conclusion to a highly challenging campaign.